What’s this? PART II? Don’t know where Part I is? Suffering from a chronic fear of scrolling down more than a couple hundred pixels? Fear not. Here’s Part I of our Mirrodin Besieged review.
[card]Galvanoth[/card]
Coda: Free spells, you say? Sign me up! I imagine [card]Jace, the Mind Sculptor[/card] probably has one of these things for a pet, because what could be better than carefully selecting the top card of your library and then casting it for free? I really, really want to reveal [card]Cruel Ultimatum[/card] with this guy. [card]Tooth and Nail[/card] would be fun, too. And [card]Insurrection[/card]. And…
Candy: Wow. Just… I mean, that card’s just begging to be abused. How about [card]Paradox Haze[/card] to give yourself two upkeeps for the potential of two delicious, delicious free spells? [card]Wort, the Raidmother[/card] Conspire decks are going to snap this dude up. Not to mention the plethora of cheap spell-copy effects out there, like [card]Reverberate[/card], [card]Twincast[/card], [card]Fork[/card], [card]Wild Ricochet[/card]. And [card]Mirari[/card]. Or [card]Maelstrom Nexus[/card]. Oh my gross.
[card]Goblin Wardriver[/card]
Candy: Goblin weenie decks will just love this guy, especially if they happen to have [card]Rage Reflection[/card] and/or [card]Gratuitous Violence[/card] out.
Coda: Yeah, the more I think of it, the more I think Battle Cry is going to become a force to be reckoned with in token decks.
[card]Hero of Oxid Ridge[/card]
Coda: Most red decks don’t tend to run a lot of tokens in EDH, so I see this guy getting played alongside a bunch of green token producers in a RG or Naya deck. Worth playing, but not necessarily spectacular. Get both this guy and the [card]Hero of Bladehold[/card] on the battlefield at once for extra bonus Vorthos points, not to mention a ton of very angry tokens.
Candy: Could be fun in a [card]Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs[/card] or [card]Rakka Mar[/card] deck. Or hell, throw him into an otherwise Goblin tribal deck, since [card]Goblin Wardriver[/card] exists. If you run red and you’re about the weenie swarm, this guy should be an auto-include.
[card]Into the Core[/card]
Coda: The best instant-speed artifact removal for EDH ever printed in red. Period.
Candy: Yeah. Not much I can say about this card other than the fact that it’s one of the best mono-red utility cards I’ve seen in a while, and that it should go into just about every red deck.
[card]Red Sun’s Zenith[/card]
Coda: It’s a solid [card]Fireball[/card] effect, but nothing to write home about. Honestly, it seems like they ran out of ideas on this cycle and just shoved a convenient effect into red. Granted, there’s really only so many things red can do in a cycle of X-costing spells. I can see people playing it, but really, there are a ton of other spells I’d rather run than this one.
Candy: Meh. You know what this is? It’s a sorcery-speed [card]Beacon of Destruction[/card] that has the potential to do more damage if you have a bunch of mana to throw at it. Of all the Zenith cards, this one was the one I found most underwhelming.
[card]Creeping Corrosion[/card]
Coda: Artifact decks beware. A new staple for monogreen decks.
Candy: For extra silliness in a monogreen deck, throw in [card]Liquimetal Coating[/card] to kill a creature as well as sweep the field free of artifacts. I’m not sure why enchantments get the insanely efficient [card]Back to Nature[/card] but artifacts get [card]Creeping Corrosion[/card] instead. Maybe because enchantments are less likely to be dudes?
[card]Green Sun’s Zenith[/card]
Coda: I like [card]Primeval Titan[/card]. Do you? I wish I could run two of them in my deck. What’s that? I can essentially run two of them now? And that second one can be an [card]Eternal Witness[/card] or [card]Acidic Slime[/card] or [card]Terastodon[/card] or whatever else I need, too? And it shuffles itself back into my library so I can reuse it again? I’m not a huge fan of saying something is a “must-include,” but I literally cannot think of a green deck that would not be vastly improved by the addition of this spell.
Candy: This spell is the nuts. Puts-on-the-battlefield tutoring for the price of only one sweet mana in additional to the critter’s casting cost? I’ll take as many of these as my grubby little hands can get.
[card]Plaguemaw Beast[/card]
Candy: I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at how much fodder Mirrodin Besieged is giving to dredge and sacrifice decks, but damn, y’all. I see lots of potential fun with this, since green loves to give +1/+1 counters to its dudes, while black loves to give -1/-1 counters to other people’s dudes. Have a [card]Doubling Season[/card] and/or a couple Planeswalkers out? Even better.
Coda: Yeah, proliferate is turning from a fringe mechanic to something with some real teeth in it. Johnnies will have some serious fun breaking this guy.
[card]Praetor’s Counsel[/card]
Coda: Remember [card]Yawgmoth’s Will[/card]? Cast stuff from your graveyard until the end of the turn, and anything you cast gets exiled. This is [card]Yawgmoth’s Will[/card] with no time limit, no drawbacks, and an upside that lasts for the rest of the game. Eight mana is a lot, sure, but there isn’t a green deck out there that wouldn’t jump at the chance to cast this spell—preferably after dumping half their library into the graveyard. Sheer insanity.
Candy: Green/black and [card Teneb, the Harvester]Teneb[/card] wedge dredge decks just got a LOT more annoying. And it’s not like they needed the help in the first place.
[card]Thrun, the Last Troll[/card]
Coda: [card]Vendilion Clique[/card] has finally met its match in 1v1. Well, maybe not, but he’s close. At first glance, Thrun is pretty much ideal for a Voltron-style deck with lots of pump effects and equipment. Sadly, green doesn’t have a lot of tutors to get the aforementioned equipment, so you’re left with the slightly less attractive option of stacking auras on him. Definitely a card targeted at ending [card]Jace, the Mind Sculptor[/card]’s domination of Standard and Extended.
Candy: Awww. I guess [card]Troll Ascetic[/card] got one-upped. Nice flavor, but I’m honestly a little bit underwhelmed. Maybe if I saw him in action I’d be more impressed, but right now, he strikes me as a wannabe [card]Uril, the Miststalker[/card].
[card]Glissa, the Traitor[/card]
Coda: Glissa is almost unbeatable in combat and has a nice bonus for killing your opponents’ creatures. Sadly, green and black are not usually colors known for running lots of artifacts. She’s still a solid card, though, and one I can see getting a decent amount of play, although rarely as the general of a deck.
Candy: I don’t care what Coda says. Seeing Glissa makes me want to build an incredibly janky black/green artifact reanimate deck.
[card]Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas[/card]
Coda: Tezzeret is solid in a UB artifact deck, but not particularly stellar. He’s more of a Constructed card than an EDH card, really. Tezz version 1.0 is by far the better choice for the vast majority of decks, but if he’s in your colors and you’re running 20+ artifacts, go nuts.
Candy: Yeah, honestly, [card Tezzeret the Seeker]Tezz 1.0[/card] was a much better utility planeswalker, but Tezz 2.0 could have a role to play in Esper decks. A resounding “meh” from me.
[card]Blightsteel Colossus[/card]
Coda: One more reason to despise Jhoira as a general and kill that [card]Master Transmuter[/card] as soon as it hits the battlefield. As ridiculous as it is on the surface, I really can’t see this card being all that much fun in actual play. It’s a card that demands an answer immediately, and if your opponents fail to answer it, they die. I rank it up there with the Eldrazi on my list of “boring, yet powerful cards that can be played in any deck.” Sure, you can run it in a deck, but I guarantee that your friends will only enjoy losing to it once.
Candy: It’s just one of those cards. I want to abuse it. I want to abuse it sooooo badly. But only once. Just to say I done it. Please. Just let me have my moment with [card]Wild Pair[/card] and [card]Darksteel Colossus[/card]. You can cast [card]Final Judgment[/card] afterwards if you like, but please. Just once. Only once. My not-especially-inner-Timmy squealed with happiness when I saw this.
[card]Brass Squire[/card]
Coda: The cutest myr ever printed. That is all. WotC needs to release a wallpaper of this little guy.
Candy: Awwww! As if myrs needed more help being the most adorable tribe in all of Magic. His ability is nothing to shout about, unless you want to insta-equip your [card]Lightning Greaves[/card] or [card]Whispersilk Cloak[/card] to one of your all-stars, or if you want to pull some silly combat damage tricks with equipments like [card]Fireshrieker[/card]. But it’s really, really flavorful. He’s a squire, see? (I hope you’re hearing “squire” in the terrible Cockney accent that I am. Like, Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins bad.)
[card]Bonehoard[/card]
Candy: I have to admit, I’m completely underwhelmed by the whole “living weapon” thing, if only because the equipments have by and large been pathetically vanilla. But this. This. It’s [card]Mortivore[/card] on a stick, and again, the possibilities of abusing this in a dredge or reanimate deck are massive. It may not be an optimal card, but I definitely think it’s a fun card, and hey, that’s what counts the most in EDH. I can’t wait to throw these into my black decks.
Coda: By and large the living equipment is mostly targeted towards limited play, but this is the lone exception. Mortivore has always been a solid beater, but a big part of that has been due to his regeneration. Trading regen for the ability to equip doesn’t seem that great to me, but then again, this can be run in more decks. I’ll probably revise my opinion of it when someone beats my face in with it, but until then I’m giving it a “meh.”
[card]Darksteel Plate[/card]
Coda: I like it. While indestructibility is hardly the last word in protection in EDH, equipping this to a creature means that not even multiple [card]Nevinyrral’s Disk[/card]s or [card]Oblivion Stone[/card]s are going to get rid of your best creature. Probably at its best in colors that can have difficulty protecting their best guy, like red, black, and blue.
Candy: Whoa, hey, fun. This is probably the most efficient way I’ve seen yet to give your dude indestructibility. It’s cheaper than [card]Shield of Kaldra[/card]. (Caveat: yeah, I know a big part of the fun with the Kaldra artifacts is getting them all out together. I don’t see too many people running the just one or two of the Kaldra artifacts just by themselves.) I can see this being popular in decks that like to deal lots of General damage, because if there’s one constant in EDH, it’s that somebody’s going to try and destroy your dudes.
[card]Decimator Web[/card]
Candy: This a pretty terrible card, so why do I want to build some kind of stupid combo with it using [card]Rings of Brighthearth[/card] and various [card]twiddle[/card] effects? I think it’s just the sheer plethora of things that it does. Not very well. But dammit, it’s trying.
Coda: Can’t decide on how to kill your opponent? Why not just try every which way? Meanwhile, more focused decks will be having their way with your soft, tender flesh.
[card]Knowledge Pool[/card]
Coda: Are you one of those people running [card]Hive Mind[/card], [card]Eye of the Storm[/card], [card]Warp World[/card], and [card]Shared Fate[/card] in the same deck? I believe you’ve found your favorite card of the set.
Candy: I can see this going two ways: hilarious chaotic shenanigans for resetting the board, or annoying combo shenanigans for an insta-win. Any bets as to which use it’ll be put to most often?
[card]Mirrorworks[/card]
Candy: WHAT. THE. HELL. This card is waiting to be broken, and broken hard, by artifact decks. For two—TWO!—mana, you get a token, and you get to keep it? None of this [card Minion Reflector]sacrifice[/card] or [card Mimic Vat]exile[/card] bullshit? (Not that I’m trying to diss Mimic Vat, because it’s by far the better all-round utility choice for most decks. But damn. 2 mana. And you get to keep the token.) So how d’you like those [card]Mycosynth Lattice[/card] shenanigans now?
Coda: Kind of neat. Throw it together with [card]Mimic Vat[/card], [card]Soul Foundry[/card], [card]Prototype Portal[/card], and [card]Minion Reflector[/card] and frustrate your opponents into conceding by making entirely too many tokens to keep track of.
[card]Myr Welder[/card]
Candy: Fascinating. Graveyard hate—really specific graveyard hate, mind you, but hey, it’s colorless, so it might be fun to board in against an annoying [card Sharuum the Hegemon]Sharuum[/card] deck. But it’s the imprint ability that’s really interesting. It’s not for every deck, but it looks like it could have potential in the right kind of build.
Coda: This guy might make [card]Soliton[/card] worth running, if for no other reason than the combo potential. Its power is severely limited by the fact that it’s an artifact creature and has to tap to use its ability, so I wouldn’t get too scared. Unless your opponent casts [card]Intuition[/card]. Then be very scared.
[card]Psychosis Crawler[/card]
Coda: Annoying blue decks that do nothing but draw cards and counter spells, I believe you’ve found a win condition. You know, aside from that one where you take infinite turns and piss off everyone at the table. This guy should be solid in quite a few EDH decks, but I can see it being downright ridiculous in blue and black decks.
Candy: Awww! This guy and [card]Consecrated Sphinx[/card] are, like, best buds. They got each other’s backs. One’s all “Dude, I got this!” and the other’s like “Naw, naw, I got it, bud, you just leave it to me.” And [card Soramaro, First to Dream]Soramaro[/card] is right there on the battlefield, cheering them on, waving his copies of [card]Rhystic Study[/card], [card]Recurring Insight[/card] and [card]Jushi Apprentice[/card] like they was pom-poms.
[card]Shimmer Myr[/card]
Coda: A solid roleplayer in artifact decks. Note that you can chain this together with other artifacts to surprise your opponents with stuff like a [card]Darksteel Forge[/card] out of nowhere.
Candy: Just in case [card]Leyline of Anticipation[/card] and [card]Vedalken Orrery[/card] weren’t enough for you, we now have a cute little Myr to enable your ridiculousness—albeit only for artifacts.
[card]Spine of Ish Sah[/card]
Coda: Now we’re talking! I love me some ETB effects, and it’s hard to top an ETB [card]Vindicate[/card]. Bounce it with [card Venser, Shaper Savant]Venser[/card], bounce it with Master Transmuter, sacrifice it and recast it with [card Bosh, Iron Golem]Bosh[/card]… this thing is going to see some serious play. Also notable is that it gives red, black, and blue a targeted method of dealing with enchantments.
Candy: The first thing I thought of was “Sweet, green finally has a way to kill non-flying creatures.” If you have enough mana to abuse (and if you’re playing green, you probably do), you can do some truly heinous things with this, [card]Cauldron of Souls[/card] and [card]Terastodon[/card].
[card]Sword of Feast and Famine[/card]
Coda: Now this is a sword. First off, it dodges green fatties and black removal, which makes it all that much more likely to connect. As for its abilities, discard is nice, if unimpressive, but untapping all your lands? That’s half of a [card]Time Warp[/card], right there. In the interest of fairness and not being an infinite combo douchebag, don’t run this in the same deck as a [card]Hellkite Charger[/card] or [card]Aggravated Assault[/card].
Candy: Nah. I say, bring on the infinite combat steps! It’s much quicker and much more merciful than infinite turns. Anyway, even without the potential for infinite combat phase silliness, I’m a fan. Who doesn’t like completely untapped lands to use and abuse for the second main phase, or the subsequent players’ turns? COMMIES, THAT’S WHO. And people who are up against [card Omnath, Locus of Mana]Omnath[/card] decks.
[card]Titan Forge[/card]
Coda: I like making giant golems. Do you? In a deck that can manipulate counters this becomes an all-upside [card]Phyrexian Processor[/card]. Run it with a [card]Lux Cannon[/card] to have a death ray to back up your army of giant robots.
Candy: Five words: green and blue proliferate deck. Two more words: [card]Doubling Season[/card].
[card]Thopter Assembly[/card]
Coda: This card was designed to be broken. Taking infinite turns with [card]Time Sieve[/card] is only the beginning of the insane stuff I imagine people are going to do with this card.
Candy: Yup. Coda just named the first ridiculous combo that came to my mind. And I’m sure there are lots of other ways to break this card—[card]Ashnod’s Altar[/card] and [card]Summoning Station[/card] came to mind, too. Way harder and way sillier, but that’s kind of how my combo brain works.
[card]Contested War Zone[/card]
Coda: Kind of unassuming at first, but don’t think of it as a land – think of it as a tiny repeatable [card]Overrun[/card] that you can tap for mana if you have to. Token decks will love it. Seeing it bounce around the table should be good fun, too.
Candy: It’s a really fun card, but I think you need to run it with a bunch of trample, first strike or double-strike effects to make it truly useful. Could be a lot of fun in [card Mayael the Anima]Mayael the Anima[/card], [card Stonebrow, Krosan Hero]Stonebrow[/card] and dragon decks, too—[card]Gratuitous Violence[/card] and [card]Rage Reflection[/card] will work pretty nicely with this land.